Microsoft officially released the first Feature Update for Windows 11 on 20 September 2022. This is the Windows 11 2022 Update Version 22H2. Recently, Microsoft acknowledged a new performance issue in 22H2 while copying the larger files from a remote system to a Windows 11 computer. Now, users may experience up to 40% slower speed while copying the larger files (multi-GB files) over SMB.
Slower SMB read performance for large files in Windows 11 22H2
If you have noticed performance issues while copying multi-GB files from a remote computer using the SMB (Server Message Block) protocol, you are not alone. This issue has been confirmed by Ned Pyle, a Principal Program Manager in Microsoft Windows Server.
In a blog post on Microsoft Tech Community, Ned wrote:
There is a performance regression in 22H2 when copying larger files from a remote computer down to a Windows 11 computer. A large (multi-GB file) might see as much as 40% less throughput over SMB when copying down (reading). Copying that same file to a non-22H2 machine (writing) won’t see this problem.
Ned also shared a workaround to resolve this problem. Microsoft is currently working on this issue and soon it will release a permanent fix for this issue. Till then, users can use the workaround provided by Ned to fix this issue temporarily.
If you are copying the larger files from the remote server using the SMB protocol, you can use the robocopy or xcopy with the /J (unbuffered IO) parameter as a workaround. This will return the performance. Have a look at the example, shared by Ned Pyle:
robocopy \\someserver\someshare c:\somefolder somefile.ned /J
Ned also added:
The issue is not actually in SMB code, so I can’t give you an ETA for a permanent fix yet; SMB is just the most likely scenario to be noticed. You could see this behavior even with local file copies not using SMB.
This issue is one of the issues users experienced in the Windows 11 22H2 update. Previously, NVIDIA confirmed Windows 11 22H2 is causing performance issues and gamers may experience FPS drop in the video games. Users are suggested to install the latest updates released by Microsoft because the latest update patches contain bug fixes.
